Lisa Almond was sound asleep when her 30-year-old daughter opened the bedroom door to tell her the news no parent should ever hear.
“My legs felt like they weighed 100 pounds each,” Ms. Almond of Austin, Texas, told the Epoch Times. “And I knew. She didn’t even have to say anything. I knew by her voice what she was going to tell me.”
Ms. Almond’s daughter told her that her other daughter, Lauren Almond, had been found dead on the bathroom floor at an Airbnb in the early morning hours of Aug. 9.
An autopsy showed the 40-year-old mother of three teenagers, 18, 17, and 15, had died from the toxic effects of fentanyl. Lauren’s children live with their father in California.
“Spreading awareness about the dangers and deadly realities of fentanyl is critically important in this fight to save lives,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram in a statement. “Fentanyl remains the most dangerous drug threat facing our country... All Americans play a critical role in spreading awareness about the dangers and deadly realities of fentanyl.”
Ms. Almond, who turned 60 on the day she spoke with The Epoch Times, said she wants to share Lauren’s story to help bring awareness to the disease of addiction and its life-shattering and deadly consequences.
“The day they told me [Lauren] didn’t make it, you know, all my dreams and hopes were shattered,” Ms. Almond said. “[Lauren] will never see her grandchildren. She’ll never see her children get married, you know, and a part of you dies when your child dies.”
Lauren’s Story
Lauren spent decades battling her addiction.She was about 12 when she started smoking marijuana, Ms. Almond said, adding that she is more than a decade into her own recovery from addiction.
“I know marijuana is a gateway drug,” she said. “It just opens up a whole can of worms. You start out with marijuana, and it kind of lets your defenses down.”
Lauren’s addiction progressed from “pot into pills, and then it went to meth and then to heroin. And from heroin to fentanyl.”
Ms. Almond said her late daughter was a beautiful woman with a “huge personality.”
“She had a beautiful soul, too,” the grieving mother continued. “Whenever she would go into treatment or whenever she tried to get sober, you know, she would always give stuff to people and bring home stray animals.
“I’d say to her, ‘Lauren, how can you help this person when you’re on the street yourself?’ And she’d say, ‘I know, but Mom, they need help worse than me.’ She had a really big heart.”
Sometimes, Lauren would get sober for a few months, but the evil demon of addiction would show its ugly head, and she would give in to it.
Her longest time without using was when she spent a four-year stint in prison for armed robbery, Ms. Almond explained. She and a guy robbed a 7-Eleven in Trophy Club, Texas. He got “30-something years, and she got six.”
Like many people do in prison, she said, Lauren found God while she was there, and she promised things would be different when she got out seven years ago.
But things didn’t change, at least not for long. Soon, she was back to using again.
Addiction is often an endless cycle.
“You’re in a perpetual state of homelessness and drug addiction,” Ms. Almond said. “You can’t get insurance, and if you don’t have any money, you can’t get treatment.”
Earlier this year, Lauren obtained government health care coverage, allowing her to get into a detox program near Austin.
In July, Lauren was admitted into Rise Recovery Services in Round Rock, Texas, where she completed an in-patient detox program.
Then, she entered an addiction treatment center. She was doing well there, her mom said, before she got kicked out of the program for smoking cigarettes in an unapproved area.
After leaving the treatment facility, Lauren was determined to stay on track with her plan to stay clean and sober. She attended meetings for a 12-step program and was rebuilding her relationships with her family.
For the first time in a long time, Ms. Almond said she felt hopeful for her daughter. She even let Lauren come live with her—something she would not allow in the past.
“Life has finally taken on new meaning,” Lauren wrote on Facebook on July 25.
Three days later, she got her 30-day sobriety chip.
Twelve days after that, Lauren died.
The day before her death, Lauren had told her mother she would be going to stay overnight with a guy she had met in treatment. Ms. Almond told her she did not think that was a good idea, but her daughter assured her she was not using and everything would be fine.
Lauren ended up at a hotel with a different guy. They “smoked something,” and at some point, she overdosed. The man she was with gave her Narcan, and she regained consciousness. Narcan is a nasal spray that is used to reverse the effects of opioid overdose.
Later, he dropped her off somewhere, and she got picked up by the guy she had originally told her mom she was going to stay with. They went to his Airbnb, where he asked Lauren if she had any drugs on her. She told him she did not.
Hours later, he woke up to use the restroom. When he walked into the bathroom, he found Lauren lying on the floor, but he was too late to save her.
New Approach to Detox, Recovery
Dan Hobson, the founder of Rise Recovery Services, spoke with The Epoch Times about the growing problem of addiction and the challenges of recovery.He said the problem of substance abuse has worsened over the last decade, but the approach to treating the disease has mostly remained the same—despite the fact that it doesn’t work well for the majority of those seeking help.
Mr. Hobson, who is in recovery himself, said he and his business partner, Dr. Henry Higgins, went “back to the drawing board” when they started building a new hospital model for detox, recovery, and other medical services, including emergency care and surgical procedures.
“We forgot everything we knew about addiction, and we created a new system to get people off of addictive substances in a safe and effective way that would give them a higher probability of long-term recovery,” Mr. Hobson said.
He said recovery is more than just getting off of the drugs. It is about helping people put all the pieces of their lives back together in a way that is sustainable for their future.
“It’s about getting a good credit score, meaning being less financially impulsive,” he continued. “Having a stronger spiritual life, whether it be, you know, Christianity or whatever your faith is, but having a higher conscious contact with a power greater than yourself. It’s about being in service to the community... just having a well-rounded life in general.”
Unlike traditional detox centers, Rise does not use addictive substances, such as methadone, to get people off of drugs and alcohol.
Mr. Hobson said they spent years developing their protocol, which allows a person to detox without the use of addictive substances.
Rise also provides emergency services and surgical procedures without the use of opioids, allowing addicts to get treatments without the fear of falling back into their addiction, he explained.
He said the medical community as a whole has been irresponsible in prescribing opiates too freely to anyone with pain. Patients get addicted, and when they can no longer get their pharmaceuticals, they turn to the internet and social media for easy access.
Fentanyl has become such a serious problem in Texas that “we automatically assume” that the patients who come for help are using it.
“Anywhere between 60 to 80 percent test positive for fentanyl,” Mr. Hobson explained, adding that they see about 120 patients per month across their hospital system, which has locations in Texas and Nebraska. “And about 50 percent of them don’t even know [they’re using fentanyl].”
Addiction and mental health problems have risen with the legalization and decriminalization of drugs, including marijuana.
“Marijuana is 100 percent a gateway drug,” Mr. Hobson said. “The 10,000 people plus I’ve worked with all started with marijuana and experimental drinking. And, you know, it’s also creating a mental health crisis.”
Yale psychiatrist Dr. Deepak D’Souza believes the potential risks of cannabis use have been “grossly” underestimated in recent years.
More About Fentanyl
The amount of fentanyl, along with other illegal drugs, coming across the border in recent years has continued to rise.In 2023, the DEA seized 74.5 million fentanyl pills and more than 11,400 pounds of fentanyl powder, representing over 360 million deadly doses. As little as 2 milligrams, or about the weight of 10 to 15 grains of salt, can be fatal.
Lab testing has found that seven out of every 10 pills seized by the DEA contained a deadly dose of fentanyl.
Fentanyl is cheap to make and can be easily disguised in fake prescription pills that are sold to unsuspecting victims who think they are buying Oxycodone, Xanax, Vicodin, Adderall, or other pharmaceuticals. These fake pharmaceuticals are readily available and easily purchased on social media and other online platforms.
Stopping Drug Dealers
In June, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill allowing prosecutors to pursue murder charges against drug dealers who sell a fatal dose of fentanyl.The law, which took effect on Sept. 1, requires death certificates to designate fentanyl poisoning as the cause of death for the purpose of going after those who are selling the deadly drug. Lauren died just weeks before the law was enacted.
